


Lichtenburg Figures

by peachpetrichor



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner, the maze runner
Genre: College AU, Emotional Thomas, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Thomas, Lightning Scars, M/M, Unbeta'd, injured minho, lighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6481321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachpetrichor/pseuds/peachpetrichor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minho is Thomas' track captain at his University, and when they're out doing drills during a Lightning storm, Minho takes the brunt of a lightning strike, sending both boys to the emergency room.</p>
<p>(Its a lot less angsty and hirt filled than I'm making it sound ok)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lichtenburg Figures

  


“Clear!”

His body arched off the table, and then flattened hard against it once the shock had run its course. The Electrocardiogram didn’t change its picture. A loose and weak looking wavy line still fluctuated on the screen.

The nurse near Thomas had tried to explain it, to calm him down, maybe to get him to leave so the doctors could do their jobs. His heart was moving and trying to beat, but it was chaotic and uncoordinated, and couldn’t create a proper contraction to get the blood flowing. She called it ‘Ventricular Fibrillation’, and said it was the most survivable form cardiac arrest, as if hearing the words ‘survivable cardiac arrest’ were at all soothing to a college student.

She kept trying to push him back as she explained, get him out of the room. 

“Sir, we need you to leave. They’re doing their best to help your friend, but we can’t have you in he-“

“Wake up!” Thomas shouted into the room for the dozenth time, his voice hoarse from yelling and crying, fear knotting his intestines.

“Sir, please-“

“Clear,” one of the doctors said again, and again, his limp body rose and hit the table with a loud ‘thump’.

“I have to call it,” another doctor said when the heart monitor didn’t change, sure they were doing more damage than good by now.

“Please, please wake up! Wake up!”

“One more!” his counterpart insisted, and sure enough a few moments later he followed up with, “Clear!”

“Minho wake up!” Thomas keened, his friends name coming out as raw and sore as his throat felt.

The boy rose, his back hit the table, and then as if pulled back to life, his eyes opened, he sucked in air from his mouth, and then his eyes rolled into the back of his head and shut, and just like that he was unconscious again.

But the heart monitor changed. There was a beat. And then two, and three, and four.

“Cardiac rhythm restored,” a sigh of relief filled the room, and Thomas let himself be finally pushed out of the room by security the nurse had called over.

“Is he ok then? He’s gonna be ok?” he blubbered at the nurse before she went back into the room. 

“His heart is stable for now. We’ll do everything we can for him alright?” she said, and turned to the security guards, “get him to a nurse please, he needs to be seen about that hand.”

Thomas had nearly forgotten about the burning sensation in his hand. He’d been holding onto him when Minho was struck, trying to pull him out of the way, get them back into the dorms. It was Thomas’ fault they’d been out there in the first place. He’d practically begged him on his knees for some extra drills, anything he could get from his track team captain so that he could improve before he embarrassed himself again and face planted on the track.   

And now they were there, Minho’s heart doing summersaults on a gurney, Thomas’ hand burnt to a crisp, various local news stations fluttering around trying to get information on the two boys struck during that nights lighting storm. 

They sat Thomas on a bed in a curtain covered cubical for treatment. 

Soon enough a young looking Doctor joined him, and introduced himself.

“Thomas,” Thomas mumbled in response, his gaze glossy with worry and guilt, face slack and exhausted.

“Let’s take a look at that hand, Thomas.”

It was burnt, from the lightning, a strange pattern climbing from the tips of his fingers to just below his elbow. He couldn’t feel his pinky below the second knuckle. 

“It’s not uncommon for patients to experience nerve damage after being struck by lightning. The feeling might come back gradually, but it’s possible it won’t. Can you wiggle it for me?”

Thomas complied with the request, worry sinking into his gut. But not for himself. Minho had taken the brunt of the strike. If Thomas had nerve Damage, then he probably did to. What if he couldn’t feel his legs? His face? His whole body?

He did his best not to start crying again.

The doctor said his hand looked like it would be ok, but they needed to run some tests and monitor him for a while to make sure nothing else was wrong.

“How much pain would you say you’re in on a scale of one to ten?” 

“Like a six, I guess.” If Thomas was at a six how much Pain would Minho be in?

“Okay. We’ll add something for the pain to your saline drip when we hook it up. You’re not going to want to eat or drink for a while, so the Saline will keep you nice and hydrated okay?”

Thomas nodded and followed the Doctor’s instructions as he was escorted to another bed, this time in an empty room with another empty bed a few feet away from his. 

A nurse came in and stuck a needle in his arm, while the doctor connected him to a couple of monitors for his heart and whatever else. Thomas wasn’t really paying attention.

“Hey,” he managed before they both left the room.

“If he ends up ok, and they have to put him in a room like this, will it be in this one?” He just needed to see him alive and ok.

The doctor smiled, “I’ll see if I can make that happen.”

When the pain medication began to set in, Thomas fell asleep to the sound of the rain and thunder, leaving him with a bitter ache in his chest.

 

“We’re dormmates at the university we go to. I’ve actually only known him for two weeks, but we’re on the track team together.”

“Wow, you two have already been through more than I have with friends I’ve known for over ten years! That’s wild man.”

Thomas was too delirious as he pulled himself from sleep to really understand what any of the words he was hearing meant. 

“So that was really him? I heard it but I thought I was dreaming.”

“Yeah he screamed your name and you popped right up it was so weird,” the older sounding of the two voices said.

Thomas wanted them to shut up. He was tired. He wanted to sleep. His hand hurt.

“Jesus,” said the other voice.

It sounded vaguely familiar.

“He even asked for you to be put in this room. Worried I guess. Not that he needs to be, you seem to be in amazing condition despite everything.”

“How long before I can run again?”

“You’ll need a lot of rest kid, let’s focus on getting you out of the hospital first.”

“Alright, fine. Then, how long before I’m sleeping as well as Thomas?”

At the sound of his own name, Thomas forced himself the rest awake. He opened his eyes and slowly remembered where he was, in a hospital, with a burnt arm, waiting for Minho-

Thomas shot up, “Minho?”

The doctor and his track captain both stared at him, stunned by his sudden consciousness.

“Morning Sleeping beauty,” Minho started but was abruptly cut off.

“Are you ok? Is he ok?” he switched between the two, his eyes darting from person to person.

“I’m fine, calm down.”

“You’re friend is actually doing almost as well as you. His surface injuries are worse, but everything else seems to be in order.”

“Oh shit ,dude, you gotta see this,” Minho said, and he turned so his back was facing Thomas, ignoring the Doctor’s urges for him to stay still. 

The hospital gown he was in, had an open back, but the hospital staff had been kind enough to let him leave his briefs on under it. 

Every inch of his back was riddled with black and purple bruising, most of it stretching over his skin and branching off like actual lightning patterns. He was very visibly burnt, but much ligh Thomas’ hand, not to the point of blackened skin. The bruising was especially prominent a long column of his spin, a dollar coin sized bruise at the center of his skin above of each disc.

It was strikingly beautiful to look at, like a strange work of art, or at least Minho thought so anyway. He had definitely perked up when he was told the lightning like shapes on his back would leave permanent scars once they healed. At least he was getting something cool out of this.

And where he expected a gasp and maybe a joke from his dorm mate and junior, instead he heard sobs. Minho turned around quickly, eyebrows furrowed in a mix of confusion and worry.

Thomas had his head dipped into his hands, shoulders shuddering with each gasping sob he made.

Minho looked to the doctor pointedly, who seemed just as confused.

“I’ll give you two a moment, and be back to check on you both shortly,” he said, seeming to pick up that his other patient was not crying out of pain.

“What the hell shank? Why are you crying?” Minho mumbled, setting back against the ice packs they’d given him to soothe his burnt back.

“I almost killed you, I thought you were dead. I did this to you I’m so sorry,” replied the younger of the two, though it was hard to understand muffled by his crying. 

“What? I- We- got struck by lightning what are you talking about? You didn’t do anything. And I’m not dead, I’m fine.”

Thomas shook his head. “If I hadn’t of asked you to-“

Minho snorted, cutting him off. “Oh that’s it huh? Because you asked me to help you with your 500 meter? That’s fucking stupid greenie, I’m your captain, I’m the one who’s supposed to be making sure we aren’t running during a thunderstorm. Me, not you.”

“But I-“

“Shut up will you? And stop crying. You didn’t do anything except call an ambulance and save my god damn ass,” Minho demanded.

“But doesn’t it hurt? Isn’t this going to mess up your track season?”

“Not right now, these pain meds they have me on are sick. And again, that’s my problem not yours.”

“That’s not fair.”

“How is it not fair?”

“You’re the best runner on the team, Minho. It’s not fair that you’re stuck like this instead of me.”

“What. You’d actually rather it have been you?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus Tommy, we barely know each other how can you sit there and say that shit? I’m going to be fine.”

Thomas shrugged. He wasn’t sure why he was so affected by this, other than the obvious shock of it all.

“I really thought you were dead,” he mumbled. “I still feel like maybe you’re dead and I’m asleep.”

“How many times are you gonna make me tell you I’m fine Green bean?”

“You don’t look fine”

“I’ll heal.”

“All the way? Can you feel everything?”

“Uh?”

“Like all your parts and hands and feet and stuff.”

“’Course I can shank, what a weird thing to ask. Can’t you?”

“Oh. Can’t feel part of my pinky. But it might come back.”

Minho laughed. “How’d you end up worse than me shank?”

“I didn’t,” Thomas mumbled. 

“I’m not dead, would you stop?”

Thomas pressed his face into his hands. He hated how he felt. 

Minho sighed.

He unlocked the wheels on his bed and pushed it along with his I.V. drip right up against Thomas’, before climbing back into it. 

“What’re you doing?” Thomas mumbled, attempting whole-heartedly to wipe up his mess of a face and stop crying. He really only cried very rarely. This was embarrassing. 

“Stupid ass shank thinks I’m dead,” he mumbled under his breath and held out his hand.

Thomas stared at it, oblivious.

“Gimme your fucking hand, Thomas.” 

Thomas did as he was instructed, handing over his now bandaged hand, and Minho laced their fingers together rather defiantly. 

“See? I’m here. Not dead. I’m here. Even if you can’t feel me with your messed up pinky finger.”

Thomas felt his cheeks grow red, but the knot in his gut slowly started to untangle itself. “Thank you.”

Minho relaxed back into his bed and closed his eyes, keeping a firm grip on Thomas’ hand. “Yeah whatever. You’re lucky you’re cute, shank.”

**Author's Note:**

> Shittyfanfictions.tumblr.com


End file.
